


Long Way Down To The Bottom Of The River

by thisisthefamilybusiness



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Dark Graphic Content, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Murder, Murder Family, Slight References to Hannibal/Will, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 02:10:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisthefamilybusiness/pseuds/thisisthefamilybusiness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How many families had been torn apart just because FBI Special Agent Will Graham wanted to play house with the Chesapeake Ripper and his protégé? Will can't sleep, can't eat, can't even think. This is going to consume him. (Fill for the following prompt on HannibalKink: "Will finds out about Hannibal being the Ripper and about him trying to get Abigail to follow in his footsteps like her father did. In the end he's convinced that he should kill her to stop her from becoming a monster.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Way Down To The Bottom Of The River

_ Hold my hand, o oh, baby,  _

_ it’s a long way down, a long way down. _

_ If you get sleep or if you get none, _

_ The cock’s gonna call in the morning, baby. _

_ Check the cupboard for your daddy’s gun. _

_ Red sun rises like an early warning...  _

  
_   
_ -'Bottom of the River', Delta Rae   


* * *

  


She's only eighteen years old, and she's been manipulated all her life. She doesn't understand what she's doing. Abigail has been abused, broken—maybe she even has Stockholm Syndrome. And maybe Nick Boyle did attack her, he isn't sure. 

Will can't come up with any defense for Hannibal, though, for all the people he sadistically humiliated in death and forced others to unknowingly cannibalise. 

(If his mind helpfully reminds him of how powerful, how electrifying and the terrifyingly incredible it had felt to kill Garret Jacob Hobbs, he ignores it.)

And this is all Will's fault. 

Not, of course, that he could have gone back in time and kept Garret Jacob Hobbs from killing those girls, or Hannibal from turning in to the monster also known as the Chesapeake Ripper. But he should have known—should have seen it coming. The signs had all been there, but he had ignored it, because no, there was no way that mild polite Dr. Hannibal Lecter took pleasure in murder, and certainly Abigail Hobbs could be rehabilitated from her one-time killer... 

Will had been wrong. And how many people were dead because of him now? Five, eight, a dozen? How many families had been torn apart just because FBI Special Agent Will Graham wanted to play house with the Chesapeake Ripper and his protégé? 

He can't sleep again, but not for fear of nightmares. His night terrors have faded away now. 

No, now the only thing that keeps him from sleep is the heavy weight of guilt in his chest that leaves him exhausted, overly emotional, and constantly sick to his stomach. Every time he tries to eat something beyond a handful of saltine crackers and black coffee, his stomach curdles, mind flashing images of all the dead Hannibal and Abigail had butchered for food and pleasure at him, blood that stained his hands just as it did theirs. 

Half-manically, washing his hands for the sixth time that night to scrub away imagined blood, Will wonders if this is what MacBeth had felt like after he killed so many to fulfil a pointless prophecy. 

He can't tell Jack, not without getting himself put away with Hannibal and Abigail (and frankly, Will knows that Hannibal would find out before he could tell Jack and snap his neck), but he can't keep living like this. He can't sleep, can't eat, can't even think. 

This is going to _consume_ him. 

* * *

 

It's easier than Will imagined it to be to drop his dogs off at the shelter and drop a match on the pile of his personal papers and journals, to wipe his house clean from bottom to top until all traces of him are gone, to cancel his credit cards and close his bank account. He deletes every online account he owns and strips his laptop down to its innards, then tosses his hard drive in to the flames, for good measure. When he's finally finished, standing soaked in bleach and smelling of ash, Will Graham is nothing more than a ghost. 

 

It's easier still to swallow down the  bottle of sleeping pills, gulping them down two at time with big mouthfuls of water like it's liquid forgiveness. He take two full prescription-strength bottles and hopes it's enough, but there's still the cold metallic weight of his gun in its holster, fully loaded, if it isn't. It'll be a few hours before it finally takes effect, but that's perfect, gives him plenty of time to work.

He calls the hospital to make sure Abigail is still there (she is). He asks them not to tell her he's coming, but it doesn't matter. 

Abigail is a clever girl; perhaps even more clever than Will gives her credit for. She will know he's coming for her whether he wants her to or not. 

* * *

 

Before Will drops his cell phone in the trash and flushes its SIM card down the bus station's toilet, he makes two phone calls: one to Jack's office, and one to Hannibal. 

* * *

 

"Mr. Graham, Agent Crawford is off today—”

"I know."

"Can I take a message, then, or—”

"Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper."

"Oh my god."

"Tell Jack I'm sorry, will you?" Will hangs up before the secretary can even think of a response. 

* * *

 

"Hello, Hannibal."

"Will."

"They know."

"Ah. I see."

"Is this what you did to Garret Jacob Hobbs?" 

"Yes. I called him from the office on the construction site. I assume you expect me to find you and kill you now."

Will laughs once, and the sound is so broken and hollow and desolate that is almost frightens Hannibal. "Good bye, Hannibal."

* * *

 

The bus ride is excruciatingly long, or so it feels to Will, who wonders if anyone can tell that he's a dead man walking. 

The orderlies behind the desk of Abigail's hospital just wave him in, don't even notice the gun he's tucked in the waistband of his jeans, careless, assuming, or the peculiar glazed look of peace in his eyes. 

Will feels like he's floating up the stairs, walking on the air, right in to Abigail's room, expression serene. 

She's sitting on her bed like she's been waiting for him, wearing a white blouse and denim skirt, hair neatly brushed, no scarf or high collar to hide the scars on her neck. She smiles at Will, gestures for him to close the door, and he knows that she's figured it out. 

He wonders in the back of his mind if Hannibal called her to warn her, but he doesn't break the strange, wonderful calm that's flooding his body. 

"You think I deserve to die, and I think you're right. I did some terrible things," she whispers. "So how are you going to kill me, Will? Poison, maybe, you seem like a poison kind of man, don't want me to suffer too badly, maybe. Or maybe a knife, just like how I killed Nicholas Boyle." 

Will smiles back at her (just like his earlier laughter, it's harsh and laced with bitterness and empty) and pulls the gun from his jeans' waistband and two more bottles of pills from his jacket pocket, tossing the bottles at her. 

"Pills. Interesting... You can tell a lot about a murderer from how they kill, you know. I wonder what they'll say about you," Abigail says. She opens a bottle and knocks it back like a shot of whiskey. 

"Won't say anything about me. They know." His voice is cracked, and he doesn't know if his hands are shaking because of the pills or something more dangerous, like doubt or fear or regret.

"Now you just sound like Hannibal," she sighs. "Tsk-tsk." She swallows down the second bottle with a sip of water from a glass on her nightstand. "How long will this take?" 

Will gulps. "Sixty seconds or less. Until you can't feel anything anymore."

"That's not—"

"Weren't sleeping pills. Pain pills. Didn't want you to feel the bullet." His leer fades in to a blank look as he counts down in his head, hoping that the back alley pharmacist he'd bought the pills from hadn't been lying to him. She's still talking to him, but he's not listening.

He pulls the trigger. 

Abigail falls backwards on the bed, and the blood sinking into the white of her shirt and bed sheets looks almost artistic. 

Will collapses to his knees as the tears start to fall.

* * *

 

 

By the time Hannibal pulls in to the hospital parking lot, shoves his way into Abigail's room, the police are already locking off the crime scene. 

Abigail lies on her bed, shot once perfectly in the heart. 

Will is sprawled across the wooden floor, his gun only a few feet away from where he had fallen. His eyes are still open, staring blankly at nothing. 

Will had killed Abigail with the same gun he shot her father with, how magnificently artful. 

Even as the police as shouting at him to get down on the ground, that he is under arrest, Hannibal can't help but leer.

_This was Will's design, wasn't it?_

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from 'Bottom of the River' by Delta Rae, which I listened exclusively to while writing this.


End file.
